Toronto author Margaret Atwood firmly established her dystopia credentials with 1985’s The Handmaid’s Tale, her classic look at the suppression of women in the near future. It presented a scenario nearly devoid of hope, despite a somewhat elevated ending.

But with the MaddAddam trilogy, starting with Oryx and Crake (2003), continued in The Year of the Flood (2009) and now with MaddAddam, Atwood allows not only optimism into her vision of a post-plague society, but also a good deal of humor and the beginnings of a new creation mythology and holy book.

Possessed of a fierce intellect, Atwood fully expects her readers to both go along for the ride and to keep up. She does, however, provide a helpful prologue that will bring newcomers up to speed.

The first two books cover the same time period, from different perspectives, on an Earth that has been recently, devastatingly depopulated by a manmade pandemic that some call the “waterless flood.” The scientist Crake has bioengineered a new humanoid species, the Crakers, who “are free from sexual jealousy, greed, clothing, and the need for insect repellent and animal protein.” They mate seasonally, and helpfully turn blue to summon potential mates. In a truly lovely touch, they purr over anyone who is hurting in body or spirit. They also sing. A lot.

Out in the unprotected “pleeblands,” we met God’s Gardeners, an eco-based religious group that teaches the “convergence of Nature and Scripture, the love of all creatures” and the dangers of technology, among other tenets.

MaddAddam begins as these bands of survivors form an uneasy alliance, all the while dealing with the threats posed by nasty Painballers (think Paintball, but much deadlier), not to mention the giant “pigoons,” pig hybrids with human DNA (created for transplants) and far too much intelligence for our good.

“Hatred and viciousness are addictive,” Atwood writes. “You can get high on them. Once you’ve had a little, you start shaking if you don’t get more.”

This time the story is told mostly from the point of view of Toby, a former Gardener. With Snowman-the-Jimmy, the Crakers’ reluctant prophet, sick and hallucinating, she ends up serving as a de facto apostle as she tells the childlike Crakers the story of their beginnings. Storytelling, it seems, is just as important to survival as food and shelter. Toby (who, incidentally, can converse with bees) struggles as she tries to satisfy the curiosity of a species whose questions never stop coming.

“Yes, it rained inside the Egg. No, there was not any thunder. … I will tell you what a bear is later. … Please stop singing. … I am doing this thing with my hands on my forehead because I have a headache. A headache is when there is a pain in your head. Thank you. I am sure some purring would help. But it would also help if you would stop asking so many questions.”

Much of the book’s delights come in Atwood’s attention to details — the luxuriant decadence of eating a scarce Oreo cookie, the realization of how eyeglasses changed the world and that “once we run out of optical products, it really will be back to the Stone Age,” the jealousy Toby feels over another survivor’s flirtations with her longtime crush, Zeb. “Toby. Take charge of yourself. This is not high school, she tells herself. But in some ways, it more or less is.”

Despite all its hardships, this new world’s inhabitants think it has potential, and so, most likely, will the reader. In one scene a rakunk, a raccoon-skunk hybrid, “stands up as they approach but doesn’t bother to run away. Overly friendly, those animals: In a harsher world they’d all be hats by now.”

As well might we all. If a cleansing of the Earth’s primary polluters — that would be us — becomes a reality through the intervention of man or Mother Nature, we can only hope for survivors as loving and smart as most of those Atwood depicts. One way or another, we’ll carry on and pass down the stories.